Student instructions
1. If you have questions about this activity, please contact your instructor for
assistance.
2. You will review a de-identified chart to complete this activity. Your instructor has
provided you with a link to the Introduction to Clinical Reminders (AS) activity.
Click on 2: Launch EHR to review the patient chart and begin this activity.
3. Refer to the patient chart and any suggested resources to complete this activity.
4. Document your answers directly on this activity document as you complete the
activity. When you are finished, you will save this activity document to your
device and upload this activity document with your answers to your Learning
Management System (LMS).
Glossary
Clinical Reminders: The Clinical Reminder system is a built-in Clinical Decision
Support (CDS) system that allows the care team to track and improve preventive
healthcare and disease treatment for patients and ensure that timely clinical
interventions are initiated. Clinical Reminders perform automatic chart audits and
schedule events based on pre-programmed criteria. In other words, Clinical Reminders
do a chart review and tell clinicians what the patient needs, or which patients need
something.
Reminder Inquiry: A reminder-specific summary of the data and criteria associated
with an individual reminder.
Reminder Description/Rationale: The human-readable description of the clinical
purpose, intent, and inclusion/exclusion criteria for the reminder.
Reminder Cohort: Patients included in a group who need an intervention, e.g. "This
patient needs a flu shot" or patients to include on a report, "Show all patients who need
flu shots."
Inclusion Criteria: The presence or absence of data that will prompt the reminder to
become "due" for a patient.
Exclusion Criteria: What will turn this reminder OFF? The findings necessary to
resolve the Reminder.
Not Applicable Reminder: A reminder is considered to be "Not Applicable" for a
patient if no findings are present in the patient's chart.
Reminder Schedule: How often should this reminder or selected intervention be due
for the cohort?
Reminder Finding: A FINDING is a piece of information that the reminder uses for
inclusion for in the EHR. A FINDING is binary: It's there or it's not. A finding must be
, coded data in order for the EHR to recognize it. Examples of findings are lab results,
vitals, completed orders, etc.
Due Reminder: A reminder is DUE for a patient if they are in the cohort (applicable)
and have not had the need (frequency) for the intervention (finding) that the reminder is
seeking, and the intervention is currently due.
Overdue Reminder: A reminder is OVERDUE for a patient if they are in the cohort
(applicable) and have not had the need (frequency) for the intervention (finding) that the
reminder is seeking, and the intervention is past due.
Not Due Reminder: A reminder is NOT DUE for a patient if they are in the cohort
(applicable) and have had the need (frequency) for the intervention (finding) that the
reminder is seeking, and the intervention is not currently due.
Clinical Decision Support (CDS): Clinical Decision Support (CDS) provides clinicians,
staff, patients or other individuals with knowledge and person-specific information,
intelligently filtered or presented at appropriate times, to enhance health and health
care. CDS encompasses a variety of tools to enhance decision-making in the clinical
workflow. These tools include computerized alerts and reminders to care providers and
patients; clinical guidelines; condition-specific order sets; focused patient data reports
and summaries; documentation templates; diagnostic support, and contextually relevant
reference information, among other tools. Clinical Reminders are a powerful type of
CDS. (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 2014)
The activity
You have been asked to review the Central Clinic's use of Clinical Reminders as an
initiative for improved Clinical Decision Support (CDS) in conjunction with their EHR
system. You have been provided with a recent report of the Influenza Vaccine Clinical
Reminder cohort findings and a de-identified chart with some examples of Clinical
Reminders, including a BMI Clinical Reminder Alert with details for your review. Please
use this information to complete this activity.
Launch the de-identified EHR and answer the following questions.
Questions
1. Which clinical reminder(s) are due?
1. Which clinical reminder(s) are not due?
1. What is the exclusion criteria for the Influenza Vaccine reminder?
1. What is the inclusion criteria for the Body Mass Index >25 reminder?